Gulf war illness, chronic fatigue syndrome distinct illnesses,
Georgetown study suggests

Date:
August 10, 2020
Source:
Georgetown University Medical Center
Summary:
A brain imaging study of veterans with Gulf War illness (GWI) and
patients with chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS) (sometimes called
myalgic encephalomyelitis), has shown that the two illnesses
produce distinctly different, abnormal patterns of brain activity
after moderate exercise.



FULL STORY ==========================================================================
A brain imaging study of veterans with Gulf War illness (GWI)
and patients with chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS) (sometimes called
myalgic encephalomyelitis), has shown that the two illnesses produce
distinctly different, abnormal patterns of brain activity after moderate exercise. The result of the Georgetown University Medical Center study
suggests that GWI and CFS are distinct illnesses, an outcome that could
affect the treatment of veterans with Gulf War illness.


==========================================================================
The findings were published today in the journal Brain
Communications. While it is estimated that CFS affects 0.2-2% of the
U.S. population, GWI is a multi- symptom illness that affects about 25%
to 30% of the approximately 700,000 military personnel who participated
in the 1990-1991 Persian Gulf War.

The two illnesses share many symptoms, including cognitive and memory
problems (often described as "brain fog"), pain, and fatigue following
mild to moderate exercise. Some medical institutions, including the
U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (the VA), list CFS as a symptom of
GWI (called chronic multisymptom illness associated with service in the
Gulf War by the VA).

"Our results strongly suggest that GWI and CFS represent two distinct
disorders of the brain and therefore CFS is not a symptom of GWI,"
says Stuart Washington, PhD, a post-doctoral fellow and first author on
the study.

"Combining of two different disorders could lead to improper treatment
of both." Washington works in the laboratory of James Baraniuk, MD,
professor of medicine at Georgetown.

In the study, functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) revealed
that the brains of veterans with GWI and those of patients with CFS
behaved differently when performing the same memory task after moderate exercise. Veterans with GWI showed a decrease in brain activity in the periaqueductal gray, a pain processing region within the brainstem,
and in the cerebellum, a part of the brain responsible for fine motor
control, cognition, pain, and emotion.

On the other hand, patients with CFS showed increased activity in the periaqueductal gray and in parts of the cerebral cortex related to
maintaining vigilance and attention. In healthy subjects, these areas
of the brain had no changes at all.

A previous study published by this same research group also suggested
that the two illnesses are distinct. It showed that exercise causes
different changes to the molecular makeup of cerebrospinal fluid in
veterans with GWI and patients with CFS.

"Now that CFS and GWI have been shown to affect different regions of the
brain, these regions can be more closely examined using neuroimaging
and other techniques to further our understanding of the similarities
and differences between the two illnesses," says Baraniuk. "Once this
new information is adopted broadly, diagnoses and treatments for both
disorders should improve."

========================================================================== Story Source: Materials provided by
Georgetown_University_Medical_Center. Note: Content may be edited for
style and length.


========================================================================== Journal Reference:
1. Stuart D Washington, Rakib U Rayhan, Richard Garner, Destie
Provenzano,
Kristina Zajur, Florencia Martinez Addiego, John W VanMeter, James
N Baraniuk. Exercise alters brain activation in Gulf War Illness
and Myalgic Encephalomyelitis/Chronic Fatigue Syndrome. Brain
Communications, 2020; 2 (2) DOI: 10.1093/braincomms/fcaa070 ==========================================================================

Link to news story: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/08/200810103300.htm

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